2016

I wasn't sure if it was the (physical, emotional, moral, political) fatigue of the week before, finally catching up to me, or if it was the late-night beers and early-morning frites from a Saturday night spent in Brussels, but I knew I wasn't feeling right.

I had slept poorly back in my own bed on Sunday night, tossing and turning and lying awake, my mind reeling and my heart thudding, keeping my tired bones awake longer than they wanted. I couldn't feel calm, I couldn't drop off to sleep despite how desperately I wanted to.

On my way home from work last night, I switched from the RER to the métro, as I always do, at the eastern edge of Paris. I stood, like I always do, in front of where I knew the door would open when the train arrived. As the train pulled into the station and emptied, I stood to the side to allow people to hurry past. When they were gone, I ducked quickly into the carriage and tucked myself into the corner seat, closest to where I'd entered.

Except, somehow, someone arrived in the seat before me. A man, standing at the next door down, darted in and across the space between us and beneath me, sliding past all the other open spots and into the seat I almost had. I was surprised, but mostly annoyed, as he'd walked past four empty and closer seats, before stealing the one that was most logical for me to take. Without really thinking I clicked my tongue loudly and hissed "ce n'est pas POSSIBLE, monsieur," under my breath, before folding into the seat opposite him. Where I'd spoken quietly, almost to myself, he responded loudly. "Ah bon ? Comment ça ce n'est pas possible ?" (Oh yeah? What do you mean, it's not possible?"). He was jeering, no worse than a playground bully though he was well into his fifties, and when he saw me avoiding his gaze (and regretting that I'd spoken), he laughed, loudly. It was a cruel laugh, a laugh that meant "you stupid girl."He shook his head as he laughed, as if to say "Who do you think you are?" With his eight words and his condescending laughter, he made me feel so small, completely invisible, like the tiniest and most insignificant thing.

And all for taking a seat that was closest to me.

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried not to let it happen, but before I knew it there were big tears escaping. I couldn't catch my breath, my nose ran into my rosy pink scarf, my mascara stained my cheeks. Do you remember how it felt to cry when you were a child? When your whole body shuddered, and one fat tear was followed by another, fatter one? I couldn't help it, I was crying like that. Avoiding his gaze, everyone's gaze, keeping very quiet, but I was inconsolable.

Was I overreacting? Definitely.
Was I crying about more than a man stealing my seat on the métro? Definitely.

In our one-minute interaction, I was made to feel invisible, and when I tried to stick up for myself, I was made to feel laughable, silly, insignificant. Sound familiar?

I won't pretend to speak for those less fortunate than me. I recognize that I could never begin to understand how someone else is feeling today, and in the past week. I recognize that I am a privileged white woman, that I have lived a charmed life, that my struggles are so minor. And yet.

I want to write about the election, because it feels important not to forget this moment. I know we are tired of talking about it, hearing about it, reading about it, thinking about it. But we mustn't let ourselves be complacent, we mustn't let our weariness lead us to inaction. I have never written about this kind of thing, politics, on this blog before.

This site is full of personal reflections, but then, this defeat feels so deeply personal.

To start at the beginning, I didn't like Hillary at first. I liked Bernie. I liked his messy white hair and his ill-fitting suits, I liked his way of speaking, his brusque manner. I liked his socialist-leaning ideals. As time went on, though, and as it became clear that Hillary would become the Democratic candidate, I made the decision to support her. I watched her speeches, her facial movements, her body language, and I warmed to her. I spoke with people who know more about politics than me, I spoke with other converted former-Bernie-supporters, did enough research to feel comfortable with my decision. (And here I feel I have to say that I recognized, too, on some level, that this election was too important to vote for anyone but her. The alternative, the unthinkable, was enough to be sure I never considered a third-party vote or abstention. But mine was ultimately a vote of conviction, regardless of the stakes.)

And then, as the date approached, I got excited. A mother, a wife, a daughter, our next president. A woman who has spent her whole life fighting, given her all to what she believes in, never given up. In the days leading up to the election, I imagined Hillary giving her first speeches as President, shaking hands with world leaders, addressing the nation, leading us. I felt so proud, in anticipation of the moment she would win. As a woman, I felt the historical importance of what was about to happen. Every part of me was buzzing. We'd show him! We'd beat him, and we'd beat him with a woman. A woman would show him that his racist fear-mongering behavior had no place in the United States. A woman would grab his rhetoric by the you-know-what, and throw it out of our headlines, our discussions, our country. That kind of talk has no place in a nation like the United States, and I was sure she would prove this once and for all, and put this orange nightmare to rest.

Imagine the little girls that would realize how far they could go! Imagine the noise that glass ceiling would make as it shattered!

Around 2 a.m. in Paris on that Wednesday morning, that ceiling suddenly felt a little bit farther than we'd thought. Our night had started with happily sharing cocktails, excitedly discussing how and when we'd voted, joyfully claiming our part of this historic occasion. As the hours dragged past, the joyfulness disappeared. We felt desperate. Some people I talked with returned to the bar again and again, trying to drown it out. I was dumb with disbelief, I felt shocked. I couldn't believe it.

At 4 a.m., I went home, but stayed glued to my screen. 5, then 5:30, and I finally turned off my computer, feeling sick to my stomach. In the fetal position, as the sun came up in Paris, I closed my eyes and let my tears dry and felt comforted that I could forget for a while that this was happening. Two hours later, I woke to a rainy morning. Mustering together the last shreds of hope I was clinging to, I opened my computer. When I saw the result, just confirmed moments before, I stood in my tiny kitchen and sobbed. I watched him climb the stage to give his "victory speech" and let big noisy messy waves from the deepest parts of me drown him out.

How had this happened? Where was the America I knew? Where was the country that I'd thought was welcoming - that had, in fact, welcomed me and my family years before? Where were the values I'd learned about in school, the pillars we promised to stick to the day we wore sworn in as citizens? Where was our America, last Tuesday?

It has been six days and I don't think it's getting easier. Watching Hillary speak last Wednesday, full of strength and grace and composure, I cried once more as I mourned the President she would have been. She was the embodiment of what a President should be: careful, measured, yet honest. A far cry from what we've ended up with.

"This is painful, and it will be for a long time."

In one way, it feels silly to still feel what I'm feeling (sad, disappointed, hurt, grieving, shocked, incredulous, heartbroken). The world keeps turning, and for the time being I'm as good as unaffected, as my fairly happy life chugs along in the land of socialism (and cheese), far away from the madness. But in another, this loss feels like the kind of weight that I'll have to remember for a long time. Like an old friend or boyfriend, or a time in my life, or a place. Something I'll keep missing, whose absence will sting every time it's remembered.

For me, it's a dark indication of the state of things back home. A storm has been brewing over the months that preceded this vote, and I'm disappointed to see that the storm has gathered strength instead of passing. I'm disappointed in my country, the country that adopted us.

The incident on the métro yesterday was so minor. It was nothing. But to me, in my tired and run down state, it felt like a reminder that today is a very dark day. Whether on the national stage or in a carriage of the line 2, there are people today that want to make us feel small, invisible, and stupid. They want to laugh at us when we try to speak up.

Where do we go from here? I don't know. I don't know what will happen to America, I don't know how she will weather this storm. I take comfort in knowing, though, that she is scrappy. She is a fighter. If my American education has taught me anything, it's that America is determined, unrelentless, tough to keep down.

I just hope that she will rise up on the right side of history, and not follow this absurd pied piper to her demise.

For now, I think the answer is to start small. In the face of the hateful decision that my country has made, I'm determined to show love in every corner of my little life.

Self love, picking up a bouquet of lilies just because, taking myself out to see the Christmas lights, getting to bed early and eating delicious things that my own two hands have made.
Love for my family and friends, sending cards and making phonecalls and giving compliments and listening, excitedly making plans for a long-awaited trip home next month, imagining how good it will feel to see them all again.
Love for my country — my countries — by minimizing the damage this time around, and then making sure that this will never happen again.

Let's be kind to each other, and listen to each other, and be intelligent and measured.
Let's remember that the brightest days often follow the darkest.
Let's keep going. xx

The end of spring and the first half of summer were dedicated to meeting a nasty deadline hanging over my head: the day my master's thesis was due. Distracted only by a too-quick but wonderful visit from a college friend at the end of May, time passed too quickly. There was no relaxing after work, because it was time to do school work; weekends were over before I'd noticed they started. Towards the end of the last few weeks before the deadline, one day melted into another with no sleep in between, my diet devolved into whatever was quick and filling and, most of the time, unhealthy. I felt that I'd never get the cramps out of my hands from hours of typing - and backspacing - and typing. My back was aching from crouching in my barstool-height kitchen chairs, from too few hours of tense sleep, from the special brand of nervous energy that only comes from days on end shut in a tiny studio working on a seemingly never-ending dissertation.

But then one afternoon, an afternoon that came after a morning that came after an all-nighter, it was over. I compressed the files, and e-mailed them, and uploaded, and then sat. And, unexpectedly, cried. I was exhausted, and needed a shower, and had been wearing the same nightdress for a very long time, and my apartment was a mess, and I was sure there were typos, but it was over, and one of my favorite humans in the whole world had just arrived in France and I could go and see her and there would be nothing dreadful hanging over my head. I called my mother, I let out the breath I'd been holding in for months, I showered, I hopped on the train, and I met my cousin and aunt and uncle at Disneyland.

Disneyland is part of my daily grind, as I spend my days translating ~the magic~ from French to English, but this time my train journey had something much more rewarding at the other end. Meron was waiting outside their hotel when I arrived, and she jumped up and down and into my arms and clasped her little hands around my neck and I very quickly felt the awful weight of the previous couple of weeks lift. Over a glass of wine in the hotel lounge, I chatted with my aunt and uncle and felt the particular comfort that only family can bring. Later that night, we stood in front of the château and watched the fireworks, and I held Meron on my hip as she danced to the music, her eyes as round as could be as she watched familiar characters appear and sang the wrong words to her favorite songs. The few days we spent at Disneyland, including one featuring a special appearance by my mother, were just the tonic I needed to the preceding months. We skipped around, wearing Minnie ears, dancing in the main square long after the parade had ended. We ate dinner together each night, and after eating I took Meron's hand and led her outside to run around and count Elsa dresses and giggle. The days passed too quickly, but it must be said that seeing Disneyland through the eyes of a three-and-a-half year old was really and truly a magical experience, and I'll carry the image of her wide eyes with me for a very long time.

They came to Paris for a few days, and I even got to have Meron to my little apartment for a one-night slumber party that began with a snotty meltdown in the taxi, but finished with Maltesers (BEFORE dinner) and Tangled, spaghetti bolognese and a 9 o'clock bedtime for both of us. The next morning she munched happily on a croissant in the métro and sat quietly on my lap taking it all in, cuter than any little parisienne I've ever seen!

When they'd gone I welcomed a friend from college who stopped by Paris during a business trip to Europe, and we spent long nights laughing and singing to music we'd forgotten about and dancing around my apartment after too much rosé. Seeing two friends from Villanova in the space of a couple of months made my heart so glad and so sad simultaneously - the familiar struggle of completely wanting to be in two places at once. I hardly had time to feel sad, luckily, as the day that Lauren left, my sister arrived at Charles de Gaulle for a week.

I took the week off from work and we toasted our reunion, and Vélibed our way around the city's watering holes and restaurants, we drove out to Giverny and found a Haribo outlet and even welcomed our Dublin-resident sister for a couple of nights. If I hadn't fully recovered from the trauma of drowning in my master's degree before, being with my two sisters brought me back to the surface. We laughed until we couldn't breathe, we remembered old jokes and made new ones, we ate fromage and drank bubbly and picnicked and slept badly, side-by-side-by-side, in my two-person bed.

Being far away from those two can be really hard - even with the WhatsApp chats and video chats and Snapchats and phone chats. There is no technology in the world - and I don't think there ever will be - that can come close to the feeling of sitting around a table with my sisters, teasing each other or talking seriously or not talking at all. We went to a wedding dress shopping appointment for the bride-to-be, and even then it felt like we were six and nine and twelve, or twelve and fifteen and eighteen, even as we watched Sinéad looking at her reflection in the beautiful white dresses it felt as though no time had passed at all, that we were still at home with each other. I felt so lucky during their visit that we have made it all work, over the years. It's a whole lot of distance, three sisters in three countries, but no matter where we all find each other it's always just as great as the time before, as great as any of the times before.

As I waved goodbye to my big sister a few weeks ago, I'll admit that a couple of tears slid down my cheeks. Like all good things, having them here went by too quickly. Despite our lists and planning and trying to do it all, there's never enough time to spend with your favorite people. I walked back upstairs, and sat in my suddenly-quiet apartment, and slowly exhaled.

The month of August is notoriously quiet in Paris. I wasn't here last August, and I'd forgotten how dramatic the mass exodus really is. Storefronts are shuttered with hardly-apologetic notes mentioning distant return dates. The bakeries are dark, their cases empty. Very few apartments light up at night, their residents far away in the south drinking pastis or across the border eating tapas in Spain or exploring even farther away. The parks are quiet, the usual weekend revellers picnicking on greener grass. At night I don't hear as many cars zooming down the Avenue de Clichy, and the métro is so empty that it's... almost pleasant? Parisians are taking a break from Paris, and I'm right in the middle of their absence, enjoying the calm. With all the busyness of the past couple of months, the work and the visitors and the go-go-go, I don't mind. I like the sleepy streets, I like the quiet. I'm taking a break, too, even if I'm still here. I'm breathing and thinking and reading and writing, taking my own quiet survey of the state of things. It's the end of a really crazy year, a really busy time that I'm not sure I'd want to do again. I'm going to bed early, most of the time, and enjoying being on my own and doing things that I feel like doing - and getting a few things done that I really don't feel like doing, but must. I'm making lists for the year to come, and setting goals, and feeling really excited.

I know that in a short week or two, the sleepy streets will begin to wake up. The bakeries will fill their window displays with flaky pastries and crunchy baguettes, the florist downstairs will be back in business and I'll be able to buy my weekly stem of lilies. The parks will be full again, Parisians eager to catch the last of the good weather before the greyness sits in. And for me, too, things will take off again. As my fourth year in Paris draws to a close, the fifth will begin in a couple of weeks. It's difficult to believe it's been so long, in a lot of ways, but at the same time it feels like the most natural thing in the world. There are a lot of good things coming this year, I think, but let's leave that for another day.

For now I'm going to enjoy the quiet, the abandoned streets, the available seats at sunny sidewalk cafés. Here's to two more weeks of breathing in this empty city. xx

Over the past few days, my social media has become a bluish blur of avid Villanova support. I've been posting on Facebook, Instagramming the only Villanova shirts that made it to France with me, retweeting sports articles from the NYTimes and Sports Illustrated and 6ABC and beyond. Last weekend I spent more than a few minutes Googling places to watch the Final Four matchup while in Heidelberg for the weekend, disappointedly accepting defeat when nothing came up. I've been 'liking' more Villanova posts than I can count over these past few days, reading more about sports than I've ever read in my life, thinking about and supporting a team whose members I could not even name. Why?

I've been turning the question over in my mind today, trying to explain the attachment I feel to Villanova basketball, the pride I'm experiencing today for a group of guys I've never met, the extra spring in my step all day, the butterflies that keep coming back. I'm not the first one to ask myself the question - I've had more than one person comment surprisedly in passing recently that they didn't know I was so into sports.

I think to answer the question, I've got to go back to the beginning, because before Villanova basketball comes Villanova.

When I was deciding where to go to college, I applied to Villanova as a fairly safe bet. My sister was in her junior year as I was applying, and she was very happy. I had visited her, I knew the campus, and I liked it. I knew I could be happy there, but didn't really consider it a top choice, preferring other schools that I thought would be a better fit. In spring 2008, though, I attended an accepted students' day with my mom, and I decided on Nova there and then. Sitting next to my mother, in a room filled with other nervous students and even more nervous parents, I got ~the feeling~ and knew beyond doubt that Villanova was the place for me. I remember the moment vividly, and the whole sunny day - the balloon arches and the blue t-shirts, the light streaming into the Villanova Room.

My feeling of certainty grew over the time I spent as a student at Villanova. After the initial hiccups of the college transition, I grew to love the campus, the students, the black bean burgers at Connelly, the small classes and helpful teachers. I met my closest friends at Villanova, people that started out as total strangers in 2008 that today are among the most important people in my life.

Amidst the blur of freshman year, between the "awkward luau" and the Fiji Mansion parties and the time spent figuring out the fastest route from Tolentine to Bartley, one thing became very clear: at Villanova, basketball was more than a sport. Upon arrival we were given Nova Nation t-shirts, and invited to the Pavilion where Jay Wright preached to bleachers full of believers. We were new to it all, but we eagerly shouted back NATION every time he said NOVA, giddy to feel a part of the excitement. We learned the chants, the whoosh-go, the fight song. With time, we learned how to be proper Nova fans. We wore and re-wore our Nova Nation t-shirts, to the games, to the Spit, to class, to the gym (or not). As the season got into full swing, we learned the players' names: Scottie, Reggie, Dante, Peña. We eagerly awaited the text messages that we'd gotten game tickets, or that we didn't, or that we were wait listed. When we didn't get tickets, we crowded into dorm rooms on South campus to watch the games, all season long. We traveled to the Wachovia Center, sneaking beer into stolen cups from campus, tailgating in the frigid parking lot.

We were baptised by fire that first year, when the 2008-2009 team led Villanova to the Final Four (it was also the year that I got written up by the Dean for trying to bring beers into Stanford for the game...). I remember when we won the Elite Eight game, when Scottie scored that last basket, the campus went wild. We jumped up and down, hugging and laughing, before running down from the fifth floor of Stanford into South campus, cheering and whooping and sprinting up Ithan to Lancaster, singing and throwing our V's up and celebrating. The energy was everywhere, coming from everyone, it felt like that moment was everything.

(Incidentally, that year, we shared disappointment too.)

Here's the thing, though. It wasn't really about basketball, in 2009, nor in the years that came after. After freshman year the team didn't get as far in the tournament, but the energy continued. The basketball wasn't as great, but the energy didn't change. We kept cheering, and whoosh-go-ing, and gasping, and stomping. We kept filling the bleachers, kept looking for tickets, kept wearing our Nova Nation t-shirts. Even when the game wasn't exciting, we were excited. At Villanova, basketball was a tangible energy that drove the students forward, brought us together, united in our celebrations and in our disappointments. It was the rhythm that we moved to: Hoops Mania was the start of the fun and we hoped March Madness would be the end. We watched on South, on West, off campus, at Kelly's. We held our breaths together, time after time, and heard the collective cheers or groans echo around campus. Over four years, Villanova basketball was a constant for us, a common point of interest, a shared passion. We "browsed" the store at Kennedy, just in case the sale section might have a shirt that wasn't XL. We posted our sizes on Facebook group proposing student-created t-shirts: from the ever-classic "Jay Wright for President" to the ever-regrettable "Nova Girls Are Wild - UConn Girls Are Husky."

I chose to study in Paris in the Fall of 2010 because I didn't want to miss the 2011 basketball season. I considered staying enrolled in Spring 2012 so I could go to student games, even though I'd finished my credits. At graduation, we posed with our "V's up," the campus-wide sign of Villanova support. We threw our arms in the air, holding champagne bottles in one hand and making V's with the other. Sunburned and with Miller Lite headaches, we moved out of our apartments in Villanova Seniors 2012 t-shirts, moving on from Villanova to New York or Boston or California, or... Paris.

The first year after graduation was hard. I missed Villanova. I missed the proximity of friends, the dollar drinks at Kelly's, lazy breakfasts at Bagel Factory, iced coffee and people-watching in the quad. I missed my seminar classes, the author readings at Connelly, chatting about French literature. I missed the way campus looks on a sunny day, on a snowy day. I missed Father Cregan's free yoga classes, pizzas from Second Storey, late nights in the library spent giggling instead of working. I missed complaining about Tolentine, about early classes, about the bookstore prices. I missed the life I'd built at Villanova, the relationship my classmates and I had built together over four years with that place. When I've been asked in the years since graduation if I liked my college experience, I've made people regret their question more than once with the length and enthusiasm of my answer. Villanova is where I met my closest friends, where I became an almost-adult, where I loved and lost and laughed and cried.

I haven't been back to Villanova since 2012. I've followed the academic news (A new Center for Irish Studies! A new Creative Writing minor!) and felt proud of my alma mater more than once. I've followed along when my friends returned for Homecomings, for basketball games. Living abroad, I'm no stranger to FOMO (fear of missing out, for the unfamiliar), but the Villanova events always felt a little bit harder to miss. I would have jumped at the chance to go back to campus, back to Kelly's, to the renamed-since-freshman-year Wells Fargo Center. Still, though, FOMO is par for the course, and generally I manage to comparmentalize it and accept a certain disconnect.

This year, though, was different. As the momentum increased in this year's March Madness tournament, so did my attachment. I saw that Villanova made it to the Sweet Sixteen, and felt glad... And gladder still when they entered the Elite Eight. Once they reached the Final Four, though, is when I really started to feel it. It wasn't FOMO, necessarily, but a different kind of energy. I wasn't afraid of missing out, because I didn't feel that I was missing out. Actually, I felt like a real a part of it. I felt like I was part of the Nova Nation that Jay Wright kept thanking. In my studio in Paris, I donned my worn-in Villanova t-shirt and followed along with the team happily. As the excitement mounted, I felt closer than ever to the action, despite being so far. Waking up to the news last weekend that we'd made it to the final, I felt as joyful as I'd felt during the 2009 run to the Final Four. Though I'm long graduated and thousands of miles away, I felt like MY team was making it, MY school was making it. I felt a part of the roaring crowd, even at a great distance.

When I saw the final was on at 3 a.m. Parisian time, on a school night, I knew I wouldn't be watching it. And yet, even without an alarm I found myself wide awake at 5 that morning, texting my sister to know the score. She told me it was almost over but worth seeing, so I tried to tune in. When the streaming website wouldn't work from Europe, my sister and I video chatted and she propped me up in front of their TV in Park Slope for the last five minutes of the game. I joined in on the chatter on my friends' group chat chain, from Seattle to Houston to Boston to New York to Florida to Paris we all watched together. With bedhead and bleary eyes in the 17th arrondissement of Paris, I watched the five most exciting minutes of basketball I've ever seen, and watched as Kris Jenkins scored the shot of a lifetime. While my sister and her fiancé jumped around their living room in Brooklyn I jumped up and down, too. Every social media outlet I use went haywire; triumphant tweets and Facebook posts and photos and Snapchats and texts, soundbytes and photos and emojis and videos. We were ecstatic, we were walking on air. As the team held up their well-deserved trophy, I teared up and my insides felt like they'd melt from happiness. That day at work, in my corporate office outside Paris, I wore a Villanova Wildcats t-shirt proudly (perhaps to the confusion of my co-workers).

Why, though? Why did I care so much?

I'm not athletic, I don't care for sports in general. I'm happy to watch rugby with my family, but not much else. Why was this win so important to me?

I can't speak for the rest of my classmates, for current students or other graduates, but for me, the importance is linked to the first night all those years ago that we learned the Villanova cheers with Jay in the Pavilion. It's also linked to the chilly March night in 2009 that we ran in the streets from South campus, propelled by adrenaline and an unnameable joy. It's linked to that same energy that continued throughout our four years on campus, and I think that this year's championship game was a return to that years-old feeling.

I'm so proud to call Villanova my alma mater. I will keep watching the replays of the final seconds of the game, to watch reaction videos. I'll continue to find gifs of Jay Wright's cool and collected reaction to the result (BANG.). I'm sure I'll keep getting a thrill out of seeing Villanova headlining articles on The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, a swell of pride in my chest when I see the photos from Monday night.

For me, supporting Villanova whole-heartedly and completely this year was a reminder of the common ground that I still share with my fellow Wildcats; that no matter where we are or what we're doing, we still care. To me, supporting Villanova basketball is supporting Villanova. It brings me back to the best years of my life, to a place I love intensely and to memories that I cherish. When I cheer for Villanova, I'm cheering for more than the players on the court. I'm cheering for a place i truly believe in, cheering in solidarity with others that have been affected by the same place. In the past few days I've talked about Villanova basketball to anyone that will listen, but I find that the most interested are other graduates. The energy we feel can only be understood by each other. Though general opinion is that Villanova played a great season, that the title is well-deserved, that it was a hard-won championship. More than an athletic achievement, though, for Villanova basketball fans all over the world the victory was personal. They won the championship, but so did we. Current students, recent graduates, alumni of all ages... This year, we all got to remember what it felt like to be a part of Villanova, to share the energy that Villanova was and continues to be.

This past couple of weeks has been such an exhilarating ride, in large part because we're enjoying the glory together - wherever we are, whatever we're doing. Watching a video of current students in the Pavilion, I felt just as excited as they did at the final basket, as if I were there. I hope I can hold on to this feeling for a long while yet. Whoooooosh.... Go!

On this day, one year ago, the world was about to change. Or, maybe more fairly, my world was about to change. Last January 6th, Parisians came home from work or school - like I just did - and made dinner, or went out to dinner, or ordered sushi (why is takeout always sushi here!?). They went to the movies, perhaps, or gathered to celebrate the Epiphany with a galette des rois, and afterwards they fell asleep alone or together, happy or sad, but mostly sure that the next day would be the same as the one they'd just ended.

Last January 7th, though, was not the same. It was the day that Paris would be shaken to its core, the day the world would collectively gasp. Just before midday, the world shifted as armed gunmen murdered a policeman on the sidewalk, then stormed the offices of Charlie Hebdo in the name of a god that, they claimed, wanted blood. Eleven artists dead along with the policeman, on a quiet street in a trendy neighborhood in the city we thought was the most romantic in the world.

I wasn't here last January 6th or 7th, but I'll never forget those days. Even from halfway across the world, I watched dumbfounded as the color drained from Parisian streets. The muted wintertime colors became grayscale, the lights of la ville lumière dimmed. I returned home to a different city, a city shaken by a hatred it hadn't encountered since the last world war - if even then. It was a city that didn't know how to recover.

But recover, it did. Millions marched in the street, proclaiming liberté égalité fraternité, chanting je suis charlie, singing the Marseillaise, laughing and hugging and determined in their strength. Charlie Hebdo had never been more popular, as subscriptions skyrocketed. Its now-famous cover from the issue following the attacks was the season's must-have item, Parisians (including myself) queuing up day after day only to be told it was sold out. The next edition of Charlie Hebdo came out, then the next, then the next. Slowly, the city exhaled. When spring came, our fear had thawed. Parisians took to their parks, to their streets, to their terrasses. We didn't forget, but we let ourselves move on. We were all still Charlie, but we were also ourselves. Rosé season came and went, the long summer evenings melted into one another, until the sun set earlier and earlier, and autumn came suddenly. Still, it stayed mild, and we clung to our streets and to our last chance to sit en terrasse in the streets we loved. Until.

Until November 13th, when terror came back to Paris, so close to where it had struck before. The horrors of last January 7th were multiplied, expanded, deepened. There was more blood, more victims, more tears, less explanation. If the city had been shaken before, it seemed to collapse now. We thought in January that we'd seen the worst of it, and had congratulated ourselves for what a wonderful recovery we'd made, and it came back a hundred times stronger.

After last January, I wasn't scared falling asleep at night or walking in the street or enjoying the weekend or... living. After November, I was paralyzed with fear. We couldn't have guessed after January that less than a year later our mourning would be more profound, more personal, more widespread than before - but it was all those things, and more. The city felt drowned in grief.

The year 2015 was not an easy one in Paris. It was the year that saw, by my count, 142 innocent people murdered in its streets in the name of religion. It was the year we realized, between January and November, that our prayers had been futile, that the threat had not disappeared, that we were not safe. 2015 was the year that my mother urged me, "Just come home any time if you don't feel safe, okay?" in a quiet, rushed voice, betraying her worry. It was the year we submitted to pat-downs and bag checks, opening our coats to prove we weren't wearing suicide vests at the door to the supermarket. 2015 was the year that saw Paris brought to her knees, her light so close to being snuffed out that it shocked the world.

And yet, amid the darkness, 2015 was many other things. For me, it was a year that began with teary goodbyes, snotty hugs and kisses and a feeling of deep uncertainty about my future, later replaced with an exciting sureness. It was the year I turned 25, a quarter of a century, and celebrated with champagne and dancing and flowers and Gatsby-style dresses, and felt so happy I thought I might burst. It was the year I spent a weekend with my dad in Italy, savoring the pure joy of a perfectly-made five euro pizza in a tiny corner joint in Florence, taking in the view of the valleyed city from a neighboring hilltop, and appreciating my relationship with my dad more than ever. It was the year I experienced Dubai in all its bizarre glitz and glam, and the year I finally visited Istanbul, falling even more head-over-heels than I knew I would. It was the year I got to spend time getting to know my toddler cousin Meron, the year I welcomed her jumping on my bed despite my wine-induced headaches, the year I gave her piggy-backs and kisses and listened to Let It Go over and over and over again.

This was the year my parents and I pulled off a huge surprise, when I flew home for four days to surprise my little sister at her college graduation. A quick trip but so filled with happiness and laughter (besides the part where we had to move Megan out of her college dorm...) that I'm smiling thinking about it now. It was the year I was unceremoniously kicked out of the apartment I'd grown to love so much - which, happily, led to my little slice of heaven that feels, for the first time, fully my own. It was the year my family came to France for holidays, and we spent long days relaxing by the pool and drinking rosé and playing pétanque and traipsing around châteaux with the promise of wine tastings at the end. It was the year I started working at Euro Disney, a job I never thought I'd want but which is more than I ever could have asked for. It's the year I spent a whole month at home, getting to know New York more than ever before and living on my sister's couch, walking across the Brooklyn Bridge and marveling at how different New York is from Paris, loving each difference more than the last. It was the year that my sister called me in Paris from the middle of the night in Brooklyn to tell me that she was getting married, and from the happiness in her voice I knew she could not have chosen a better man. This was the year that my family celebrated Christmas in Dublin for the first time since we were small, and the year that my travel-suprise-extraordinaire mother was travel-surprised by the sister and niece she'd been longing to see. It was the year that Place de la République became a symbol of strength, and French flags appeared all over the city.

This was the year that so many good things happened, despite the bad. In some of the darkest days after the attacks, when fear was around every corner and we were surrounded by questions of Who and How and, most frequently, Why, it is thinking of these moments that kept me afloat. In November, a cartoonist at Charlie Hebdo posted a drawing on his Instagram that resonated with me enormously:

Despite all the horror between this day last year, and today, we've kept playing music, kissing, living, drinking champagne, feeling joy. When Paris wakes up tomorrow, our hearts will be heavy thinking of last January 7th. We'll pause throughout our day, remembering one year ago, the day everything changed. We'll remember the wasted lives, the bloodshed, the terror, the tears, the lost innocence. But let's also remember the good. I'll be remembering the love I felt this year, the people I kissed and the jokes I shared and the laughter that threatened to split my sides. I'll be remembering that this year, like every year, the love was stronger than the hate. I don't know what 2016 will be like. Maybe it will be the year I finally run that marathon I keep thinking about, or the year I move back to the States, or the year I decide to stay in France. Or maybe not.

No matter what 2016 brings, as long as we have music and kisses and life, champagne and joy, I think it will be alright. Happy happy new year. Here's to living. xx